Windows 10 kiosk- Scripting registry change for shell (reg add) using a value with quotes?

Question

We are building a Windows 10 kiosk that switches the shell from explorer.exe to Google Chrome with a specified path to a web page. I need to switch the value of "Shell", pointing it to the Chrome executable with some switches.

I wanted to use a batch file with a "reg add" command, but I am running into problems because the data value includes quotes. Here is an example of the reg add command I am trying to run:

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v Shell /t REG_SZ /d "c:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\Chrome.exe" --no-default-browser-check --kiosk http://Servername/Folder/index.html /f

It tells me "Invalid Syntax", I think because it thinks I want to change the data value to the value in quotes (c:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\Chrome.exe) and it doesn't know what to do with the switches (--no-default-browser-check --kiosk http://Servername/Folder/index.html)

Is there a way for me to use the reg add command to do this? And if not, is there a better way to accomplish this? I am not a PowerShell expert but is there an equivalent PowerShell command that would work in this scenario?

Answer 1

Try this.

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v Shell /t REG_SZ /d """"c:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\Chrome.exe""" --no-default-browser-check --kiosk http://Servername/Folder/index.html" /f

Answer 2

Hi,

See if this works

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v Shell /t REG_SZ /d "c:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\Chrome.exe --no-default-browser-check --kiosk http://Servername/Folder/index.html" /f  

Or you can use the powershell cmdlet Set-ItemProperty

Set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon' -Name 'Shell' -Value 'c:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\Chrome.exe --no-default-browser-check --kiosk http://Servername/Folder/index.html'  

Best Regards，
Ian Xue

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